The California Birthday Book Part 36

The California condor, the largest of all flying birds, is found only on this coast and only in the southern half of that, although an occasional specimen has been seen in the high Sierra Neveda. Of all the sailing or soaring birds he is the most graceful and wonderful, drifting to and fro, up and down, right or left, in straight lines or curves, for hours at a time, darting like an arrow or hanging still in air with equal ease on that motionless wing whose power puzzles all philosophy.

T.S. VANd.y.k.e.

OCTOBER 2.

Wild fowl, quacking hordes of them, nest in the tulares. Any day's venture will raise from open shallows the great blue heron on his hollow wings. Chill evenings the mallard drakes cry continually from the gla.s.sy pools, the bittern's hollow boom rolls along the water paths. Strange and far-flown fowl drop down against the saffron, autumn sky. All day wings beat above it with lazy speed; long flights of cranes glimmer in the twilight. By night one wakes to hear the clanging geese go over. One wishes for, but gets no nearer speech from those the ready fens have swallowed up. What they do there, how fare, what find, is the secret of the tulares.

MARY AUSTIN, in _The Land of Little Rain._

OCTOBER 3.

MOCKING BIRD.

Warble, whistle and ripple! wake! whip up! ha! ha!

Burgle, bubble and frolic--a roundelay far!

Pearls on pearls break and roll like bright drops from a bowl!

And they thrill, as they spill in a rill, o'er my soul: Then thou laughest so light From thy rapturous height!

Earth and Heaven are combined, in thy full dulcet tone; North and south pour the nectar thy throat blends in one!

Flute and flageolet, bugle, light zither, guitar!

Diamond, topaz and ruby! Sun, moon, silver star!

Ripe cherries in wine!

Orange blossoms divine!

Genius of Songsters! so matchless in witchery!

Nature hath fashioned thee out of her mystery!

JOHN WARD STIMSON, in _Wandering Chords._

OCTOBER 4.

THE MOCKING BIRD.

Can anything be more ecstatic than the mockingbird's manner as he pours out his soul in song, flirting that expressive tail--that seems hung on wires, jerking those emphatic wings, which say so much, turning his dainty head this way and that, and now and then flinging himself upon the air--light as a feather--in pure delight, and floating down to place again without dropping a note. It is a poem in action to see him, so lithe, so graceful in every movement.

OLIVE THORNE MILLER.

OCTOBER 5.

THE MOCKING BIRD.

Each flower a single fragrance gives, But not the perfume of the rest; Within each fruit one flavor lives, Not all the flavors of our quest; In every bird one song we note That seems the sweeter without words; Yet from the mock-bird's mellow throat Come all the songs of other birds.

FRED EMERSON BROOKS, in _Pickett's Charge and Other Poems._

OCTOBER 6.

When a mocking-bird looks squarely at you, not turning his head one side, and then the other, like most birds, but showing his front face and using both eyes at once, like an owl--when he looks squarely at you in this way, he shows a wise, wise face. You almost believe he could speak if he would, and you cannot resist the feeling that he is more intelligent than he has any right to be, having behind those clear, sharp eyes, only "blind instinct," as the wise men say.

OLIVE THORNE MILLER.

A sunset in San Juan is truly worth crossing either a continent or an ocean to witness, when the ranges toward La Paz are purple where the sage-brush is, and rose-color where the rains have washed the steep places to the clay, and over all of mesa and mountain the soft glory of golden haze.

MARAH ELLIS RYAN, in _For the Soul of Rafael._

OCTOBER 7.

THE MOCKING BIRD.

He has an agreeable way of improving upon the original of any song he imitates, so that he is supposed to give free music-lessons to all the other birds. His own notes, belonging solely to himself, are beautiful and varied, and he sandwiches them in between the rest in a way to suit the best. No matter who is the victim of his mimicry, he loves the corner of a chimney better than any other perch, and carols out into the sky and down into the black abyss as if chimneys were made on purpose for mocking-birds.

ELIZABETH AND JOSEPH GRINNELL, in _Birds of Song and Story._

OCTOBER 8.

I love the mocking-bird; not because he is a wonderful musician, for--as I have heard him--that he is not; nor because he has a sweet disposition, for that he certainly has not, but because of his mysterious habit of singing at night, which seems to differentiate him from his kind, and approach him to the human; because of his rapturous manner of song, his joy of living; because he shows so much character, and so much intelligence.

OLIVE THORNE MILLER.

The lift of every man's heart is upward; to help another human soul in its upward evolution is life's greatest and most joyful privilege; to lend ourselves each to the other as an inspiration to grander living is life's highest ministry and reward.

DANA W. BARTLETT, in _The Better City._

OCTOBER 9.